The Tao of the Thieving Checkout Clerks

       All professions and jobs have dishonest employees. The difference is the amount of cash or property that their jobs provide them with an opportubnity to steal. In the case of high-ranking polititians, that amound might run into the millions. However, in the case of checkout clerks, the opportunites are much more humble. In their case, it might boil down to maybe a hundered to a few dollars to pennies or just items that they manage to slyly keep for themselves.

  Now, there are certain methods that such clerk thieves use as far as I can see from personal experiece. Below I will describe them and how to safeguard yourself against them.

      In this case, the clerk will feign to bag all the items but will occasionally and slyly hide one under the counter. Buy five coldcuts and one goes under the counter as he deftly makes as if he is bagging them all. When the customer arrives home he finds one imissing. The clerk will swear he bagged it and that the customer lost it on the way home.


Solutions:  Don't take your eyes off the items aned  bag or then yourself in your own bag as they are scanned.  That deprives the thief of the opportunity he needs  to do some quick and well- practiced sleight of hand switcheroos.


      The clerk will claim that you gave him less money than you did. I gave one a twenty lowered me eyes momentaril;y and she swiftly showed me a one in her hand even though I had softly said "Out of Twenty!" Another claimed I had given him a five and another a ten when they had been twenty dollar biols.

Solution: Announce the amount you are paying loudly and confidently. "Out of twenty!  "Out of a hundred!" so that the amount is known and nothing less can be claimed.

      These techniques will reduce the chance of the thief clerk attemping to steal counting on your trust in his honesty or your distraction. Others might be counteing on the customer's advanced age and assumed failing memory. They have observed persons of advanced age with dementia and know that they can be taken advantage of due to disorientation or else a growing mistrust in the reliability of their own memory.

    The thieving clerk carefully checking out a custome's body language for indications of dementia before they make their move.  He will note the  customer's fumbling for money,  his disoriented facial expressions, his wandering eyes or faraway gaze,his  distraught facial expressions, shuffling gait, are all that he needts to gain confidence that he can do his thing.   



BTW

Of all the ones who did this, only one admitted having taken my tebn diolklars and returned it. Others snmilingly denied it or else demand the customer leave the store.